Life at court does not satisfy a man, but it keeps him from being satisfied with anything else.

The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.

A man may have intelligence enough to excel in a particular thing and lecture on it, and yet not have sense enough to know he ought to be silent on some other subject of which he has but a slight knowledge; if such an illustrious man ventures beyond the bounds of his capacity, he loses his way and talks like a fool.

When we are dead we are praised by those who survive us, though we frequently have no other merit than that of being no longer alive.

One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing at all.

We are valued in this world at the rate we desire to be valued.

The mind, like all other things, will become impaired, the sciences are its food,--they nourish, but at the same time they consume it.